Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before eBook

As the Samoans supposed disease to be occasioned by
the wrath of some particular deity, their principal
desire, in any difficult case, was not for medicine,
but to ascertain the cause of the calamity. The
friends of the sick went to the high priest of the
village. He was sure to assign some cause; and,
whatever that was, they were all anxiety to have it
removed, as the means of restoration. If he said
they were to give up a canoe to the god, it was given
up. If a piece of land was asked, it was passed
over at once. Or, if he did not wish anything
particular from the party, he would probably tell them
to assemble the family, “confess, and throw
out.” In this ceremony each member of the
family confessed his crimes and any judgments which,
in anger, he had invoked on the family or upon the
particular member of it then ill; and, as a proof
that he revoked all such imprecations, he took a little
water in his mouth, and spurted it out towards the
person who was sick.

In surgery, they lanced ulcers with a shell
or a shark’s tooth, and, in a similar way, bled
from the arm. For inflammatory swellings they
sometimes tried local bleeding; but shampooing and
rubbing with oil were the more common remedies in
such cases. Cuts they washed in the sea, and
bound up with a leaf. Into wounds in the scalp
they blew the smoke of burnt chestnut wood. To
take a barbed spear from the arm or leg they cut into
the limb from the opposite side and pushed it right
through. Amputation they never attempted.

The treatment of the sick was invariably humane,
and all that could be expected. They wanted for
no kind of food which they might desire, night or
day, if it was at all in the power of their friends
to procure it. In the event of the disease assuming
a dangerous form, messengers were despatched to friends
at a distance that they might have an opportunity
of being in time to see and say farewell to a departing
relative. The greater the rank the greater the
stir and muster about the sick of friends from the
neighbourhood and from a distance. Every one
who went to visit a sick friend supposed to be near
death took with him a present of a fine mat, or some
other kind of valuable property, as a farewell expression
of regard, to aid in paying native doctors or conjurors,
and to help also in the cost of pigs, etc., with
which to entertain the friends who were assembled.
The following story illustrates the ideas and doings
of the people at such a time:—­

Tuitopetope and Tuioleole were two brother conjurors
belonging to Upolu who had been on a visit to Tutuila.
On their return they landed at night at Aleipata just
as messengers were running from place to place to
inform the friends of the dangerous illness of the
chief Puepuemai. The two looked into the house,
and there they saw a number of gods from the mountain
called Fiso sitting in the doorway. They were
handing from one to another the soul of the dying chief.
It was wrapped up in a leaf, and had been passed by
the gods inside the house to those sitting in the
doorway. One of them said to Tuitopetope, “You
take this,” and handed the soul to him.
He took it. The god mistook him in the dark for
another of their god party. Then all the gods
went off, but Tuitopetope remained in the village
and kept the soul of the chief.